Talk:Severe acute respiratory syndrome

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Former featured article Severe acute respiratory syndrome is a former featured article. Please see the links under Article milestones below for its original nomination page (for older articles, check the nomination archive) and why it was removed.
Main Page trophy This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on December 20, 2004.
The article SARS and accusations of racial discrimination was nominated for deletion. The debate was closed on August 19, 2007 with a consensus to merge the content into Severe acute respiratory syndrome. If the merger is not completed promptly, SARS and accusations of racial discrimination might be re-nominated for deletion.

To discuss the merger, please use this talk page.
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[edit] Coronavirus?

"...sequencing of the DNA of the coronavirus supposedly responsible..."

Don't coronaviruses contain RNA? --Phemeral Mar 24, 2006

[edit] "Progress of the outbreak" section

Something should be done to the "progress of the outbreak" section. Its current size is ok, but at some point (a couple of months from now) we have to either

  • start deleting older, not-so-relevant-stuff (a bad choice)c
  • move the section into its own article or
  • let it bloat into a huge list containing hundreds of small events.

Any ideas before this becomes a problem? --Card 16:05 Apr 10, 2003 (UTC)

I'd take option#2 - create Timeline of SARS outbreak -- User:kt2

Yes, that makes sense. More tables and plots would be nice, too, e.g. cumulative cases over time. --Eloquence 02:17 Apr 11, 2003 (UTC)
Better would be SARS timeline
I agree that it should be renamed and split up into something resembling the Afghanistan timeline. -- Minesweeper 00:56 Apr 28, 2003 (UTC)
Much of it is still in the tense that was appropriate as the outbreak was occurring. Two years later, this is no longer appropriate. --YixilTesiphon

[edit] Racial effects

Since no one replied to my request to furnish evidence to substantiate claims of racial effects of the SARS outbreak, I changed the title of the section. I also added a published source who has questioned these claims, since quotable sources were requested. I am taking a Popperian approach here. The null hypothesis is that there are no racial effects of SARS, and to demonstrate that there are such effects we just need some evidence that disproves this null hypothesis. This approach gives us the opportunity to establish with certainty that racism exists. Jfitzg

Although I do prefer the new title and don't have particular objections to the recent edits about race, there are two points to be made here:

  1. Taking a "Popperian approach" is not always acceptable on Wikipedia. There is far from universal agreement that the only things worth saying are A) not yet falsified by evidence but still B) falsifiable in principle. In addition, people may have different views about what is/isn't falsifiable, and the sorts of evidence that would be relevant for falsification. In light of this, the NPOV policy strongly suggests that being "Popperian" is not a blanket, unproblematic justification for one's edits.
I'm going to be rude and interrupt your comment, becuase the points you make are important (as are everyone's here) and I think it aids clarity to respond to them immediately rather than in some later compendious reply. Anyway, as I have argued below, the hypothesis that SARS has led to racial discrimination is utterly without empirical support. After weeks of these accusations I think it is only reasonable to ask that people who claim that there have been such effects provide some evidence of them. Yes, the hypothesis remains falsifiable; that's the point. It remains falsifiable, but the believers in racial effects of SARS refuse even to try to falsify it (except by fabricating "racial jokes" that were never told). I added the bit about racial slurs and expanded on the quotation from Min Tat Cheung, by the way.Jfitzg
  1. There is no universally acceptable, a priori reason to take "no racial effects" as the null hypothesis, instead of taking, say, "some racial effects", or even "lots of racial effects", as the null hypothesis. You could argue one way or the other based on what seems intuitively plausible, or based on if it's worse to A) say there's racism when there isn't or B) say there isn't racism when there is. But no matter which one you pick, people will disagree with you.
The a priori reason is that the "no effects" hypothesis is falsifiable, and the others not. A non-falsifiable hypothesis does not enable us to reduce uncertainty. No one wants to offer any evidence, anyway. Jfitzg

Again, I'm not currently suggesting any particular changes. I'm just suggesting matters are murkier than they first appear.

--Ryguasu 22:45 Apr 11, 2003 (UTC)

Just my two bits, I don't want to get into this Popperian stuff, or the state null hypothesis, prove otherwise method, because I don't know much about it. Although I do think some of the things that someone recently added, like the fact that Jean Chretien went to a Chinese restaurant, and that "it is close to election" are petty things, which don't really make it any stronger. I mean, wikipedia were actually trying to prove one side or the other, these would be moot points. Wikipedia is NPOV, so it argues for both sides...it which case they are still moot, petty points. I am biased because I personally don't like hearing about the stupid little things that politicians do, and then includes when Chretien invites people to a chinese restaurant, as if he needed to prove he wasn't racist. dave 15:56 Apr 12, 2003 (UTC)
I took out the reference to racial jokes in the media scrum, because I didn't hear any, and I heard the exchange in question several times. If racial jokes were made, quote them in the piece. As for Wikipedia not having a point of view, that is irrelevant. The accusations are just plain wrong. They are demonstrably wrong. They are false. Some of them -- like the story of the racial jokes in the scrum -- are manufactured. I am sure Wikipedia does not countenance printing falsehood simply because it's someone's point of view. What if someone decided to blame the Jews for SARS? That's a point of view. Jfitzg

I don't want to edit the totals, because I realize there is a system in place here. but the totals in this news story [1] and in this wiki-article do not align. Kingturtle 03:55 Apr 13, 2003 (UTC)


Turtle, don't worry, just fix it yourself next time. This is a high traffic article anyways, if you typed in 14 by accident or if they news changed tomorrow, it would be fixed. dave 06:08 Apr 13, 2003 (UTC)

Sorry to bring this up again, and I appreciate those who update the totals, but the current totals are confusing -- does the China entry represent a sum of numbers in the mainland plus those from Hong Kong and Taiwan?

By the way, there is lots of talk in Taipei Times and elsewhere about Taiwan, WHO, SARS and China. Anyone willing to write it up?

Kaihsu 18:20 Apr 14, 2003 (UTC)

The China entry does not represent a total. The "problem" is that the WHO classifies Hong Kong and Taiwan as regions of China and alphabetizes them on the list as if they began with "C". I've yet to find some way to name these regions without stepping on someone's toes. There was some discussion of this here. -º¡º

I don't like the alphabetical order of the external links. I think it should be arranged in the reversed order of significance. I would put WHO website first, CDC's next (due to their authority in the medical field, then Hong Kong's, Canada's and then Taiwan based on number of cases affecting the countries. Just my two cents.

User:Kowloonese 23:08 Apr 14, 2003 (PDT)

Rewrote section on China. IMHO the CNN article was a very bad summary of what was actually said at the press conference. If you go to www.xinhua.org, you see this page on SARS

http://news.xinhuanet.com/ziliao/2003-04/15/content_832545.htm

and even if you can't read Chinese there is enough there to make it clear that the official media is no longer an official blackout on the story. One of the links on the page is a transcript of the press conference covered by CNN, and IMHO the CNN story was quite a bad summary of what the Chinese officials actually said.

Here is a link to the press conference that CNN covered.

http://www.xinhuanet.com/zhibo/20030410/zhibo.htm

Changed the paragraph to describe exactly what China did and remove speculation about why China did it. My experience has been that most speculation on why Chinese officials do certain things tends to be extremely uninformed.

--- User:Roadrunner

I haven't kept track of who keeps doing it, but frequently the Western criticism about China suppressing news of the outbreak gets deleted from the article.

It's actually me. User:Roadrunner

Why would anyone want to omit from the article the fact that people outside China accused the regime of a cover-up?

Changed the wording some more. The way that it was worded makes is read like it has been established that Chinese officials were intentionally covering up information about SARS.
The problem is that the wording misrepresents the Chinese governments position on what happened. I don't have any objections to a charge that the Chinese government has had a coverup provided that there an an accurate statement of what the Chinese governments response is. Thus far, the allegations have completely misrepresented the Chinese governments response to charges of a coverup.


The other point is that the paragraph makes is sound like that Chinese government *still* is surpressing information about SARS, when that is clearly not the case if you the Chinese media. It's been the top story for the past several days.

This encyclopedia isn't endorsing those charges -- merely reporting them. Moreover, if a delay in reporting the outbreak within China itself turns out to have aided the spread of the disease, I think this would be a significant revelation.

Apparently China has both (A) denied covering up the outbreak and (B) apologized for not telling people about it....

--Uncle Ed 18:59 Apr 15, 2003 (UTC)

The position of the Chinese government is that they mishandled the early stages of the disease, but they are trying to do the right thing now.

Thanks for clearing that up, Roadrunner. Perhaps we need a subsection (or separate article) on the cover-up issue.

Near as I can recall, what happened was this:

  • the West found out about SARS when someone in Hong Kong showed up with the disease early this year. Within about a month, two things happened. Experts traced the disease back to China's Guangdong province, and China officially reported the outbreak to the WHO.
  • Next, some in the West began complaining that China had been "suppressing" news of the outbreak. They even started suggesting that this alleged "cover up" had aided the spread of the disease and blaming China for this.
  • In the last week or so, China began to admit that it had been, um, slow (?) in revealing/reporting the outbreak.

Are we pretty much agreed on my three-point summary? I don't want to have an edit war. It's better to hash it out on the talk page, and then edit cooperatively. --Uncle Ed 19:41 Apr 15, 2003 (UTC)

The problem I have with that summary is that it doesn't name exactly alleging a cover-up late last year (meaning that officials knew that they had a problem and intentionally surpressed information about the news). The Reuter articles is not a sufficient source for this since it is just repeating boiler plate. There is a good Washington Post article about this, but all they are accusing the Chinese government of is bureaucratic inertia and rear end covering. They problem here is that unless one is careful one ends up playing a game of telegraph where an original report of bureaucratic inertia becomes a full scale cover-up.

Now there *has* been an accusation that the PRC is covering up cases in military hospitals Beijing, but that is a different issue.

-- User:Roadrunner

Changed the paragraph. There probably wasn't a coverup in Guangzhou, but it appears now that there was a coverup in Beijing.

-- User:Roadrunner

Regarding SARS in Hong Kong,

A poem from all H K Citizens :

Congratulations, Mr. Tung Chee-hwa,
What a year you've had so far
Things have certainly been bizarre
Starting with Antony Leung's new car
And now we even have a disease named after the HKSAR.

Oh Mr. Tung, please bring back our glorious past
When property and stocks would rise far and fast
And everyone was having such a blast
Now we're just wondering if you're up to the task
And asking when can we take off this stupid mask.

Here is a long list of external links on SARS, some may be useful for this article.

Severe acute respiratory syndrome: External links

That post above is cluttering the talk page...delete it? move it? fix the ugly <a href= crap? I suggest the original poster should fix the hyperlinks for us.

The WHO is clearly backlogged and they can't verify the deaths to be SARS-related quickly enough. You'd think the the ministry of health in ontario would be quicker. They report 16 deaths (1 is a half-death, the lady caught it in canada and then went to the phillipines and died). All the updates are available here: http://www.health.gov.on.ca

So please don't blindly alter the Canadian death toll and make it lower. If I set it to 13, or 14, or 16, or whatever, it's because I've heard it from the Ontario ministry of health. dave

Hi Dave. I think we just have a failure to agree on our terms. A simple answer is that the table is by definition correct, since it is a list of ONLY those cases reported BY the WHO, and NOT of those reported by national health ministries. But there is an even better answer that cuts to the heart of your question. The WHO is not involved, at all, in "verifying" the deaths of SARS victims. They accept whatever data is sent to them by the national health agencies and report it without modification. So, why does the WHO say 15 why HealthCanada says 16? Simple. If you read the fine print on the Canadian site, it says that one of the deaths was due to a "suspected" case. Since the WHO only reports "probable" cases, the WHO total is one fewer than the Canadian total.-º¡º

Is there a graph that plots the number of cases against the time line? user:kowloonese

I made one a week ago, but it wasn't very interesting so I never bothered posting it. Most of the big jumps have to do with countries "recognizing" and "unrecognizing" cases, and no clear slope was discerned. Feel free to try making your own graph if you think it will be fruitful. -º¡º

--- I've got graphs on world numbers based off WHO data and graphs based on Singapore numbers. They're from Excel but still quite viewable. Should I post them? They'll quickly go out of date ... April 30, 2003 - User:Alex.tan

There is already a graph!!! User:Thomas 04/30/03
Yes, there is already a graph. If you post one of yours, are you going to take the effort to regularly update it? -º¡º
It seems to be up-to-date for the time being.... Actually, I have a macro which is in charge of getting all info from the WHO site to update the graph. Not too much work! User:Thomas 05/01/03
Yes, I noticed that there is a graph, but I don't understand it - what's the big idea of the two Y-axes? Could you explain the left axis and how it goes from negative to 160%? User:Alex.tan 1/5/03
I see, you're right. I'll try to make it easier to understand. User:Thomas 05/01/03

Now that Progress of the SARS outbreak has its own article, shouldn't the duplicate material on the SARS page be removed? -- 241

Sure, why don't you take care of that? -º¡º

Disinfopedia article on SARS outbreak has information not here, contrasting Chinese and Canadian reaction.


I'm confused about the graph. Where did the numbers come from? Like 100%=94 for Canada. Where did you get this? It does not match the WHO table. dave 19:48 Apr 30, 2003 (UTC)

I rather think is that graph really meaningful? -- Taku 02:09 May 2, 2003 (UTC)

and the blue gradient background detracts from the readability of the graph, making it hard to read. I'd also like to see the data sources noted. The curves look much too smooth. The Anome

I also agree that they are too smooth. Ideally I'd like to see a white background, and all the data points shown, scatterplot. And I think a trendline would be better than point-to-point connections. Maybe a moving average is best in this case. There's no way those outliers should be swinging the curve wildly like that. dave 15:16 May 2, 2003 (UTC)

OK OK! Major changes about the graph. Far more easier. Actually the previous one is very useful to get the evolution of every country very fast. This is a more global approach and it doesn't require to think too much. All value are trended (Moving Average of 7 days) and stacked. And easily readable. Any other suggestions? USER:Thomas 05/02/03

This graph seems pretty good! I think we can keep this one. JohnQ 14:56 May 3, 2003 (UTC)

One thing - graphing "currently infected people" does not make sense from a clinical point of view. As SARS is an evolving disease, there is no way to know that "recovered" people are no longer infected. There have already been cases of "relapses". Similarly, there are reports that "recovered" SARS patients are still shedding SARS virus 4 weeks later in their stools. Therefore, I think graphing this is at the very least potentially misleading. Alex.tan 01:24 May 5, 2003 (UTC)

Nice. What is your suggestion then? USER:Thomas 05/05/03

I suggest charting total cases, number recovered and deaths. Graphing a derivative of these numbers is just graphing what you think is appropriate - with the benefit of the retrospectoscope (later, of course) this may or may not turn out to be the right way to have shown things. Having said that, I think WHO should be reporting "number discharged" rather than "recovered". Also, why is your graph showing a mortality of 20% when my numbers suggest that (deaths/(deaths+recovered)) so far amounts to 13.87%? Alex.tan 12:28 May 5, 2003 (UTC)

Your calculation is not good. 13,87 % is the AVERAGE mortality rate since the outbreak of the disease. This is absolutly not relevant to trace it troughout the time. 20% is the mortality rate calculated from the new deaths and new recovered people for the last 10 days. Which is useful to see how the disease is evolving. Taking into consideration total cases, number recovered and deaths doesn't add any information (the mortality rate is a synthesis of these figures). Moreover, it doesn't show that the disease decreases in some countries (Canada, HK) and that China is not able to control the disease. Which are important facts I guess.
USER:Thomas 05/06/03

yes, but your graph didn't initially show that it was tracking the 10 day mortality rate ... your graph initially suggested this 20% was the AVERAGE mortality rate. Please don't show misleading information. Alex.tan May 6, 2003

To have a graph with the average mortality rate doesn't make sense! The figure for tomorrow will contain the figures of today and yesterday. Therefore, you cannot compare variables that are not differentiated. Variables have to be comparable.

AND PLEASE ALEX.TAN ! IT'S NOT BECAUSE YOU ARE TOO STUPID TO UNDERSTAND A GRAPH THAT YOU SHOULD REMOVE IT! I DON'T DAMAGE YOUR WORK, RESPECT MINE. USER:Thomas 05/06/03

I will remove whatever I think is wrong information, misleading information or downright disinformation. I'll agree that your current graph is the best out of all your graphs but many others will agree with me that your first few ones sucked big time. I can't modify your graph to fix the numbers so the best I can do is remove it until you fix it. Alex.tan 13:47 May 12, 2003 (UTC)

(unknown date sometime between March 25 and April 1), an Asian commerce conference was postponed to an undetermined date in autumn. Can anybody verify this claim by supplementing it with a bit more information? This seems far too vague a statement for this entry.

I can't seem to find any information in the article on the transmission vector of the virus (e.g. airborne, water, food, etc.). Does that mean it is still not known? Could someone add that kind of information to the article. -- Ap

It's airborne. That's why people where the masks, and that's why you see politicians going to chinese restaurants on TV (because it's not in food or water). Of course, if someone coughs in your food, that's a different matter. dave 22:24 May 2, 2003 (UTC)
It is not known! It is likely airborne, but probably also infects in other ways, there is big inconsistensys in the ways it have and have not infected. The medics working on it today is not sure.Stefan 03:14 May 4, 2003 (UTC)
Sure, they are not 100% what method it is transmitted by. But what else could it be? There aren't that many options. And obviously if it is in fact airborne, then it is probably in one's saliva as well, and blood as well. Actually I just heard on the radio right now, that it can last up to 24 hours or longer on a plastic surface, you if you touch a surface which someone with SARS coughed on, then put your finger in your mouth (or any other orifices) you'll probably catch it. Also, they said it lasts up to 4 days in excrement. dave

Why does our graph seem to show a 20% mortality rate, when news sources keep reporting a 5-10% mortality rate? For example [2] Rmhermen 02:52 May 5, 2003 (UTC)


I can tell you, the mortality rate is absolutly not 5-10%. These figures are wrong. USER:Thomas 05/06/03

Where does anyone except yourself say that this is the mortality rate? The way the caption looks under the graph it appears that you are claiming that WHO says that this is the mortality rate but as of May 1 they were saying it was 6-10% but liely to go higher [3]. Is there some more recent news? Rmhermen 19:33 May 5, 2003 (UTC)
Hear, hear. The mortality rate is closer to 15%, not 20% even by the calculation of deaths/(deaths+recovered). I still think the mortality figures should show an overall number rather than the number over the last 10 days. The assumption that all patients take the same amount of time in hospital is false. Some people are out after one week, some after two ... and ... many people in ICU can end up staying in hospital for more than a month.Alex.tan May 6, 2003
We could increase the time span, but not extend it to a global average. This has to be limited in time! Otherwise, this is misleading. (for instance, if the mortality rate sinks the average mortality rate will be far too slow to react). USER:Thomas 05/06/03
Shouldn't the mortality rate be deaths/(deaths+cases)? Just because someone hasn't "recovered" doesn't mean they've died either. Then the mortality rate is closer to 6%. -- Minesweeper 17:43 May 6, 2003 (UTC)

What are you exactly talking about? Current deaths? People dead for the last 2 weeks? New cases? Actual cases? I don't think we can compare people recently dead to actual cases as this would be to compare a state to a flow. USER:Thomas 05/06/03

Just look at the totals in the chart: 6234 cases, 435 deaths, 2702 recovered. The calculation being used is deaths/(deaths+recovered) = 435/(435+2702) = 14%. Now, what about the 3097 who have been ignored? The term "mortality rate" means to me the number of people who have died out of the number of people infected. If 10 people are infected and one dies, it seems that's a 10% mortality rate. For example, what if 10 people are infected, one dies and two recover, leaving seven still "sick"? By the above calculation, we have a 1/(1+2) = 33% mortality rate, even though just 1 out of 10 infected has died. This calculation of mortality rate leaves the thousands who have been infected but have not died out of the equation, inflating the numbers. See this article, which says "WHO and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention divide the number of deaths by the number of cases to yield a mortality rate, which yesterday was 7 percent worldwide." This calculation yields 435/6234 = 7%. Are we going to follow the numbers of some PhD, or the WHO and CDC? -- Minesweeper 01:29 May 7, 2003 (UTC)

OK. It depends what you want to show. The calculation you speak about is a slow one. I mean, if the disease become suddenly very lethal, the graph won't show it at once. Moreover, if the number of people infected rises suddenly, this will decrease the mortality rate, which is clearly misleading. But, as I can understand that not everyone is familiar with all these different calculations and the graph has to reflect the figures in the news to appear consistent, I changed it. (I'm not stubborn! Just feel free to give your opinion I'll do my best to put it into pratice!) USER:Thomas 05/07/03

No, Minesweeper, the mortality rate refers to an individual's prognosis at the onset of the disease. If you were to catch SARS now, how likely would you be to die? The easiest way to examine that is to look at the cases where the disease has run its course; ie. the patient has either died or recovered. If you read the Boston Globe article your change points to, the expert opinion seems to sway on the side of this "known outcomes" calculation method. WHO says they are using the deaths/cases method for consistency, but that's foolish; consistency in these figures is impossible to attain between a new and rapidly spreading disease like SARS and, say, malaria. Thomas is right in that the spread and effects of the disease are better illustrated with the known outcomes approach. For example, there is now statistical evidence showing that the growth rate of the case load is very different from the growth of number of deaths (using the WHO data for the last month, the number of cases is growing at a rate of 40% per 10 days while the death toll is rising 78% in the same time). These kinds of issues are not illustrated by WHO's metrics that are clearly designed to work with more mature diseases. User:Markonen 05/07/03

Okay, understood. I felt that the lower number should at least not be ignored, which it now isn't. I think both numbers are somewhat misleading, but since both are quoted and explained, I'm happy. -- Minesweeper 10:24 May 8, 2003 (UTC)

The visual presentation of the graph is much better: but please can you remove the soft-shadow effect in the corner that obscures the latest details? The Anome

Sure. Thomas 05/08/03

In this new article we see WHO adopt a new mortality rate computation system [4]. This one is apparently based on the likelihood of dying for each week you are sick. Their new rate is 15%. v Rmhermen 13:25 May 8, 2003 (UTC)

15%! And the average mortality rate calculated on the graph is...15%!!! Ha! WHO should come here to read this page. Thomas 05/08/03

  • This should be of use to those working on this article [5]
  • Is this of use? [6]

Kingturtle 17:30 23 May 2003 (UTC)

In the news yesterday: SARS from space? http://edition.cnn.com/2003/TECH/space/05/23/sars.fromspace/

Heh, I was just checking in here to add mention of that "SARS from space" story myself. Think it should go in the main article? -- John Owens 20:31 24 May 2003 (UTC)
And what of the lowly civet cat? (Much maligned, much eaten, and an ingredient in perfume...) <G> -- Someone else 20:37 24 May 2003 (UTC)
on the BBC the guy was described as (I think) an astrobiologist. checking if we have an article on astrobiology... they gave a huge amount which they say is biomatter that falls to earth each day. seemed enormous -- Tarquin 20:48 24 May 2003 (UTC)
Hmm, it might be worth it, if only to include this one quote from a WHO spokesman: "I find it hard to believe that it came from outer space. We won't be sending a WHO team to investigate." -- John Owens 21:10 24 May 2003 (UTC)

What is the average mortality line on the graph and why does it never change? Rmhermen 18:35 15 Jun 2003 (UTC)

This is the GLOBAL average mortality rate. When the disease will be over, this will be the mortality rate of the illness. Thomas 05:47 24 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Is there any mention in the article of the fact that other countries in the most hard-hit region (i.e. Thailand, Malaysia) may have also had thousands of cases and hundreds of deaths which went unreported due to the general lack of highly qualified medical care? -Smack 22:19 14 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Upadate as needed: [7] --Jiang

This creates problem. The list includes only the last detailed worldwide update that WHO issued. I will try to find a way to incorporate it. Tell me if it works. Rmhermen 15:01, Oct 6, 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Name of article

I have moved this article from Severe acute respiratory syndrome to Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome. The capitalized form is the form preferred by WHO and by news articles that I can find. —Lowellian (talk)[[]] 21:47, Nov 25, 2004 (UTC)

If you believe this title shouldnt be capitalized, then you need to discuss here as Lowellian has done. --Jiang 00:32, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Thank you Jiang. Wikipedia naming conventions stipulate that disease are lowercased unless they are eponymous (Rendu-Osler-Weber syndrome comes to mind). You'd have to change policy if you want this page to be capitalised. I do not know who has authored the WHOs style guide, but medical literature does not - as a rule - uppercase any medical terms, again unless they are eponyms. Please adhere to internal conventions. JFW | T@lk 10:31, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Overwhelmingly, sources list the spelled-out form of SARS as capitalized. WHO, an authoritative international organization on disease, capitalizes it. News articles capitalize it. Physicians and medical researchers capitalize it. That is, the medical literature capitalizes it. Lowercasing it would be what goes against Wikipedia policy, because it violates the "most common name" rule.

Also, note that Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome is also usually capitalized. I suspect that there is, if not an explicit standard, a de facto rule in the medical literature that when a syndrome is commonly known as an acronym, its constituent words become capitalized. —Lowellian (talk)[[]] 22:40, Nov 28, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Souvenir Sheet

Should dicuss souvenir sheet issued by PRC gov't against SARS and any other relevant postal history. --Daniel C. Boyer 19:30, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] SARS is caused by SARS

Why does this say that "SARS is now believed to be caused by the SARS virus"? No kidding. That's like saying Lou Gehrig died of Lou Gehrig's disease, or U. S. Grant is in Grant's Tomb...it's redundant. User:Omeomi

Omeomi, please sign your comments. I have done so for you.
And in response to your statement, no, it's not necessarily obvious. For example, AIDS is not caused by an "AIDS" virus; it's caused by the HIV virus. —Lowellian (talk) 15:31, Dec 26, 2004 (UTC)

Yes, but it is kind of obvious, and "believed" is just a little silly. If it there is a virus called SARS virus, it will nearly ceratinly cause the disease. I think this needs to be included but definitly rephrased 86.143.95.189 13:19, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Crappy English in the 'Political and economic reaction' section

The political and economic reaction section contains many grammatical errors and awkward phrasing, as well as a spelling error ("handeling").

Be bold and correct it yourself. You can. It is a wiki. JFW | T@lk 23:12, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] PRC vs. mainland China

Regarding these edits: #1, #2, as far as I can recall the WHO used "mainland China" instead of "People's Republic of China" in its press releases and reports of naming policy you want to adhere to then.--Huaiwei 17:37, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Right. I am sticking to the current naming conventions on Wikipedia throughout all my edits. — Instantnood 18:01, Mar 23, 2005 (UTC)
There is a clear distinction between the two terms. The PRC includes the Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and Macau. The term "mainland China" is normally used to refer to the country excluding Hong Kong and Macau (and Taiwan, when used in a context that would otherwise include it as part of China). The WHO reported infection figures separately for mainland China and Hong Kong, hence its use of the phrase. Rodparkes 04:25, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Someone has switched the word China for Thailand while leaving the province and other information unchanged. Is this a case of vandalism? (I am new to wikipedia). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.231.179.170 (talk) 17:03, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Conspiracy theory?

The introduction says that there is speculation that the disease is man-made, without any references and without any further details in the rest of the story. This begs to be removed. Bas

[edit] Can we do better than this?

On 1 April, a European airline laid off a batch of employees owing to a drop in travellers caused by the 11 September attacks and SARS. Rich Farmbrough 00:46, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Concerns about this article

Hi there. I came across this article recently when placing a template for the recently featured pneumonia article. There seem to be significant problems with this page. The data table has not been updated in a very long time: I'm doing that now. I've also reworked the layout, and removed one image which IMHO is entirely uninformative. But there are more serious issues. This article is—lest it be forgotten—about a medical disorder. The primary focus of such articles should be the condition itself—its epidemiology, etiology, pathogenesis, clinical manifestations, diagnostic methods, treatment and management options. SARS being as newsworthy as it was, there is no doubt a need to record the other things (eg. "Political and economic reaction") that happened in relation to it: however, these should be treated in WP:summary style in the main article, and moved to a separate, more detailed article if there is a lot to be said. Currently, the medical issues in the article are poorly written and entirely unreferenced. The arrangement is also haphazard, with level 2 sections on "Current state of etiologic knowledge" and a separate "Mapping the genetic code of viruses linked to SARS" sitting alongside an overly brief and poorly titled "Clinical information". The data are quite untrustworty. There is a very strange graph on the page, which I see that Alex.tan was at pains to improve in an early discussion above; unfortunately, despite his commendable efforts, the uploader hasd't produced something that we should allow in the article. There are two lines, "average mortality" and "mortality", on the graph. The AM line is horizontal, across the entire time period? Was the AM always 10% across time? No. The "probable cases" graphs are even more perplexing. It was apparently computed as follows:

People probably infected = Cumulative case − Number of deaths − Number of people discharged.

That's an extraordinary idea of what "probable cases" means. The caption also states This graphic represents the evolution of the people probably infected, by main countries (Moving Average of 7 days) and the mortality rate for the last 2 weeks. I do not understand what this means, and I'm pretty sure the "last 2 weeks" that are spoken of are not really these last two weeks. This is too unreliable to leave on the article, and I'm removing it. I favor using clear tables—explicitly referenced to authoritative sources and dated—to convey statistical information in biomedical articles on WP. Graphs should preferably be obtained "as is" from reputable public domain sources, or, if they are to be draw up by a Wikipedian, should explicitly reference both sources and have a clear data table alongside. There is too much room for errors by non-experts in this area. Conveying erroneous information is one thing: doing so in an important medical article is particularly to be discouraged.

It also appears that various bits of information have been tacked onto the bottom, unfortunately unclear and unreferenced, as people heard about them. It is rather surprising that this article is an FA, although perhaps it was much better at that time. Further, it looks like this happened before the current FA system was set up, which might also explain it. I don't doubt that the medical editors on WP can bring this article up to speed, but at the moment it is a strong WP:FARC candidate. I'll not push the issue at the moment, but hope to work on it myself from mid-December when I have more time. Kind regards encephalon 05:51, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Requested move

SARS is not a proper noun; according to Wikipedia's naming conventions, article titles are not capitalized unless they are proper nouns. — Knowledge Seeker দ 09:59, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

  • Support. We've been through this before, but Wikipedia systematically uses lowercase, and I've moved hosts of medical articles to lowercase titles for this reason. There is no reason why policy should be ignored for this entity. JFW | T@lk 11:37, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Support -- naming conventions --Arcadian 14:59, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Support — Kimchi.sg | Talk 15:18, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Support per nom. Owen× ☎ 16:03, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose - it is a proper noun (see comment below). Rd232 talk 23:35, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
    • Support - it seems more usually not to be capitalised - see below. Rd232 talk 07:53, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Support --WS 23:53, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
Add *Support or *Oppose followed by an optional one sentence explanation, then sign your vote with ~~~~

[edit] Discussion

Add any additional comments
You what? Who says Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome is not a proper noun? It's given as an example of a proper noun here! Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome is the proper name of an entity (a specific disease), and it should be capitalised; whilst severe acute respiratory syndrome is a type of disease, and should not be. (Illustration: "you have a severe acute respiratory syndrome... we don't know exactly what kind..." versus "you have Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome... time to panic...") Rd232 talk 23:35, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
Diseases are not normally considered proper nouns, and are not capitalized unless they include a proper noun such as someone's name (compare Alzheimer's disease versus diabetes mellitus). I don't know where scipeeps.com gets its information, but they appear to be incorrect in this case. If you can provide an example of diseases being capitalized in print (or online such as in an electronic journal), please mention it here. — Knowledge Seeker দ 00:03, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
I can provide examples for "Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome": eg "Ingenuity and wells ease Harbin crisis", The International Herald Tribune, November 26, 2005. However a random selection from LexisNexis newspapers database (sample: 10 - because LN doesn't do case-sensitive and you have to read them individually :( ) suggests it's capitalized 30% of the time. So I suppose the non-capitalised form should be used here. Rd232 talk 07:53, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
It would appear that the scipeeps.com page is a copy of our very own Noun article; the information about diseases has since been removed. — Knowledge Seeker দ 00:11, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
Ah. Well I guess all this recycling is good for the environment... ;) Rd232 talk 07:53, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
Hehe...it's funny—as Wikipedia grows in popularity, we'll have to be more and more careful about where we get our information from. I remember a fact being questioned in an article and another user reporting a news article with the fact, not realizing the news article cited Wikipedia as its source! — Knowledge Seeker দ 07:58, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
Please see Misinformation on Wikipedia. JFW | T@lk 08:58, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Result

Page moved according to consensus. Eugene van der Pijll 18:49, 9 December 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Ethics of disease control during an epidemic

I've added the following link to the external links, official announcements section:

"Following their experience with, the Canadians have put together an excellent exposition of the ethical principles that apply in an epidemic or pandemic, and discussion of how the were/can be applied in practice. It's available here."

I'm not sure if it's in the right place.

BTW, a group of UK doctors is starting a wiki, only editable by registered doctors - www.ganfyd.org.

[edit] April Fools

According the outbreak in the People's Republic of China is an April Fools Joke. Should the information in this article be corrected?

[edit] Featured article review of January 2006

This review resulted in the passing of a new version of the article, which is now designated a featured article of concern due to reference formatting.

I think it's good to review stuff that was Really Big News for a time. March, 2004 promotion and diff. I note that the "Spread of SARS" map breaks up the text in an ugly way. There's also a lot of very short paragraphs that should be merged. Most importantly, it needs to have a separate "external links" and "references" section, preferably with inline citations. I suggest passing the review, as the article has improved significantly, but designating it an article of concern until there's a references section. Tuf-Kat 09:26, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

  • The article has been moved to Severe acute respiratory syndrome. It badly needs a fact-check and proper footnote and reference sections. The tables and boxes need to be formatted to fit the screen properly (doesn't work on my screen settings). Finally, it just needs a good clean-up (especially the "Clinical information" and "Political and economic reaction" sections.) --maclean25 21:43, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Confusing Acronyms

Shouldn't the acronyms in there be a bit more explanatory, I mean I was scratching my head in ocnfusion trying to figure out what ROC stood. I had to scroll up until I found that it stood for "Republic of China", perhaps a bracketed explanation next to the first appearance of the acronym would avoid such future confusion?

[edit] Questioning Eradication

In May 2005 the disease itself was eradicated by the WHO and it became the second disease in mankind to be eradicated (the other was Smallpox), the New York Times reported that "not a single case of severe acute respiratory syndrome has been reported this year or in late 2004. It is the first winter without a case since the initial outbreak in late 2002. In addition, the epidemic strain of SARS that caused at least 813 deaths worldwide by June of 2003 has not been seen outside a laboratory since then." [1]

I would dispute this section of the article, the WHO website makes no mention of eradication on their website. Unlike small pox which is widely known to have been eradicated in the wild. SARS is still active, and they treat it as such. They give recommendations for identifying a SARS infection. Logically, if SARS had been deemed eradicated by the WHO, surely they wouldnt be giving information about identifying an infection. Compare the SARS page [8] to the Smallpox page [9]. Secondly, there have been no reports issued by the WHO on SARS since a laboratory induced infection in late April 2004. I would not accept that just because its not been seen outside of the laboratory since June 2003 means that it has been eradicated. It's like saying, just because you can't find the needle in the haystack, that the needle doesnt exist at all. JonEastham 21:22, 17 May 2006 (UTC)


The SARS virus cannot be "erradicated." Smallpox was an unique situation because the virus had no natural host other than humans. The SARS virus jumped from animals, possibly the civet cat, to humans, and therefore cannot be erradicated without destroying natural host resevoirs.

[edit] Repetitive death stats

someone could sift the whole article for those death stats that get repeated again and again:

774 of these died 813 deaths 813 deaths 774 (in the table)

etc.

Go ahead and do it yourself. This is a wiki. Be sure to sign your name on your comments too. (four ~ in a row.) Seventoes 03:49, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Confusing repetition of different numbers in the opening paragraph

The infection and death stats are listed in the opening paragraph twice and differently. I understand that the first one is called out as a WHO number (but not cited), but no source is given for the second. I think if there is some disagreement about the numbers then it is proper to give both but they should both be cited. Dalf | Talk 20:27, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Again Questioning Erradication

I too question the statement that SARS has been erradicated. The WHO have made no such official statement, and even the New York Times article cited states that the virus has merely "vanished, for now." I feel that this should be removed and clarified that no cases in the wild have been seen since 2004. This is a more accurate statement, and I think I will correct this if there is no opposition.

DMR418 22:58, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

I totally concur. On a pure strain basis (one could call it SARS-CoV2003 or whatnot) this might be true, but:
"SARS virus crossed the xenographic barrier from civet cats. In September 2005, a study was released from China which found that 40 percent of a sample of Horseshoe bats collected near Hong Kong were infected with a close genetic relative of SARS, raising the possibility that SARS originated in bats and spread to humans either directly, or through civet cats. The bats did not show any visible signs of disease."
is in line with all other observations which suggest an animal reservoir, in which case eradication of single virus strains would of course be possible (provied they can be conatined) but eradication of the disease or SARS-CoV-like viri would be nigh impossible in fact. Smallpox could only be eradicated because it was a strictly humans-only disease, i.e. the Variola vera "gene pool" was completely isolated from its animal counterparts. SARS-CoV by and large seems to have been able to infect most carnivorous and omnivoroous mammals. It's just like Ebola (only less deadly) - Zaïre Ebolavirus kills humans far too efficiently to assume that all its outbreaks have been caused by the same strain that somehow, miraculously, was maintained in the human population without killing off its hosts.
As long as it is not unequivocally falsified that SARS-CoV does belong to a group of coronaviri which jump species barriers as a matter of habit, I consider the eradication claim preposterous in the extreme and seriously doubt that the WHO would officially issue such a statement. The exact wording should be double-checked; if it merely was "we have destroyed all remaining stocks of the SARS '03 virus", that may be correct, but it is not the same as "it is eradicated". Dysmorodrepanis 03:19, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
I have outcommented the entire "eradication" claim after reading the NYT article. The verbatim quote in the in the intro paragraph is rather selectively culled from an article that reports that a) the epidemic can be considered over but that b) SARS might pop up again any time. I think temporarily culling a misleading, unsourced ("eradicat-" does not appear anywhere in the "source" for the claim...) and potentially dangerous intro paragraph from public view (it's stil there in the source of course) is the most sensible course; the whole "eradication" number needs a complete rewrite! I can only wonder why one would want to butchers so crudely the fairly clear NYT article as to suggest there won't be SARS anymore, ever. Dysmorodrepanis 03:28, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Hi, can we please include information on the fact that SARS appears to have vanished. Or no known cases for sometime or whatever. Nowhere in the current article does it show the current (2006) status of sars in the human population. Gavin 06:14, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Vandalism

There is no supporting evidence Anal Warts is a symptom of SARS.

This is just vandalism by 60.231.28.109. See other edits by same author for clear evidence of vandalism. Farcast 22:45, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

I have fixed the MIKEY IS FAT vandalism by 74.15.2.83

[edit] Merge from The Sar-vivor Rap

Please merge any relevant content from The Sar-vivor Rap per Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Sar-vivor Rap. Thanks. —Quarl (talk) 2007-02-11 00:21Z

Is this a joke? Sar-Vivor Rap is well... a rap group. Why should their name be linked to SARS? Beside, their article might be deleted anyway. Yongke 18:37, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

My bad, didn't see that this Rap group was actually created specifically by the government to educate the general public about the SARS outbreak. Relevant to this article's interest.Yongke 18:47, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Carlo Urbani

"Carlo Urbani was an Italian physician and the first to identify severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) as a new and dangerously contagious disease."

Can anyone insert a reference to this physician that was the first to identify it?

Thanks, --80.104.129.63 11:40, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Global Public Health Intelligence Network

This article needs to mention the critical factor that the Global Public Health Intelligence Network (GPHIN), part of the World Health Organization's Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network, played toward detecting and helping the SARS crisis. Collaboration also proved to be a critical success factor and may want to be included. I briefed the Pentagon back in 2005 on this during a stint at the Office of the Secretary of Defense studying Avian Influenza. I will help put some time in on this - but will need some help as well. MLWilson 18:53, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Something missing?

Hi. During the outbreak, I've heard on the news that there were about 6 cases of sars in Australia, a figure that has absolutely no mention in the article. I mentioned this because I was certain I'd heard about it, so it should have some mention in the article. In fact, a Google search for 'SARS Australia' turned up 1.2 million results [10]. I've not found any other mention on the talkpage either. With over a million sources, I think it should at least have a short mention? Or, does the article only list confirmed cases? IMO it should at least have a short mention, even if it's unconfirmed. Again, the sorces vary. Some say there are 4 cases, others say 1 confirmed case and 5 unconfirmed. Can someone add it to the article? Thanks. -- AstroHurricane001(T+C+U) 16:04, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "The Chinese World"

No article refers to groups of states or jurisdictions with such blithe and subjective terms. Let us just list China and Taiwan separately, with Hong Kong and Macau coming under China. And commentry about Taiwan's lack of international recognition should at best be referred to incidentally in this article. Frankly, discussing this subject in an article that concerns the deaths of thousands of people shows a lack of judgement. Kransky 05:40, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cut unsourced assertion

I cut "("Patient #0" -- first reported symptoms -- has been attributed to Charles Bybelezar of Montreal, Canada)" because its meaning is not entirely clear and its likely meanings (Bybelezar is patient zero, Bybelezar located patient zero) do not match any of the sources I've seen except mirrors of this page. --Kineticman (talk) 10:31, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Article still lacks transmission section

As mentioned a few years ago in this talk section, why does the article have no entry on how it is transmitted? Gront (talk) 10:24, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] sars is certainly quite scary.

After reading a few historic revisions, I never knew that sars really caused the mucus in one's respiratory system to turn to stone! I mean, literally, becoming so hardened that it would take a jack hammer, if not dynamite, to break it up. Not to mention expanding and ripping the upper torso wide open. What a scary and gruesome way to die. I hope I never catch that dreadfully destructive virus!Darthvader1 (talk) 22:49, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] World threat?

It is not clear from the article whether a sensationalistic claim about SARS being "the next AIDS and worse" is true. This presentation of SARS as a world threat is part of the advertisements a new journalism-based talk show is using to promote their first episode which has not aired yet... So I came to find out for myself and I see there's no data on how contagion occurs (The ads suggest sexual intercourse and mere shaking of a hand)... Rather than being alarmist I guess proper information on the plausbility of major outbreaks of SARS could get a place in the article, after all, the fragments that might involve this (Detailing about its spread to other countries and control) are not conclusive. Even the piece that speaks 'bout treatment never says explicitly whether a cure exists or not (But you do not need more than a neuron to realzie that's what's being implied). So well, this was just a thought... Undead Herle King (talk) 20:04, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Must correct myself... It wasn't about SARS the ado... It was about MRSA... Which in Spanish is SARM... The narzholes couldn't pronounce the fcking M...Undead Herle King (talk) 03:49, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Kimchi

I've heard some say Kimchi, an asian cabbage dish, helps prevent sars. Anyone know more about this?, seems to be gossip. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.98.39.157 (talk) 20:24, 5 March 2008 (UTC)